Muslim men at early Friday afternoon prayers at Vancouver Public Library. As a result of the eclectic ethnic diversity, observers say Metro Vancouver Muslims get along better than many in other parts of the world.

The two Muslim seniors at the cafe inside the foyer of the main Vancouver Public Library were listing off the countries represented by the hundreds of people, mostly men, who had just finished Friday prayers; kneeling and bowing in the Alice MacKay Room.

And Egypt, added Allen Sabet, a retired business professor, naming the country he arrived from decades ago. Zainul Aljunied chimed in with the homeland he left: Singapore.

The two men were enthusiastically describing one of the things that makes it more than interesting to be a Muslim in Metro Vancouver: The remarkable ethnic diversity of the city’s Muslim community, known as the ummah.

Although letter-to-the-editor writers expressed cynicism when a noted Catholic monk from war-torn Syria, Father Paulo Dall’Oglio, recently told The Vancouver Sun that Metro Vancouver could become a global model for dialogue among Muslims, Sabet and Aljunied fully appreciated his hope.

In contrast to what they called the “tribal” conflicts among Sunni and Shia Muslims in Syria, Iraq, Pakistan, Kashmir and elsewhere, the two immigrants were convinced an atmosphere of respect generally pervades the city’s roughly 120,000 Muslims.

In support of the Islamic ideal of the ummah, which stipulates there should not be tensions between Muslim brothers and sisters, the two seniors cited famous quotes of the Prophet Muhammad about the value of inter-ethnic harmony.

“Although religious tensions between Sunnis and Shia are unfortunately common throughout the Muslim world, especially in South Asia, there are few

“Although religious tensions between Sunnis and Shia are unfortunately common throughout the Muslim world, especially in South Asia, there are few sectarian problems among British Columbia Muslims,” SFU Prof. Derryl MacLean writes in a chapter in Asian Religions in B.C.

Low-key conflicts still break out between members of the two broad branches of Islam known as Sunni and Shia, the latter of which includes the Ismailis (followers of the Aga Khan) and the messianic movement known as the Ahmadiyya.

Nevertheless, MacLean believes Metro’s relative lack of conflict is deserving of study by scholars. He regrets how this B.C. perspective was ignored a few years ago when the Trudeau Foundation invited 25 speakers to a major conference in Vancouver to address to topic: “Muslims in Western Society.”

One of the secrets to the harmonious inter-Muslim relations in Metro, MacLean suggests, is that no single ethnic version of Islam dominates the dozens of mosques and prayer centres peppered across Metro, which are left free to develop their own characters.

Since there is so much diversity, different Muslims tend to co-operate for city-wide events. Muslims marvel at the ethnic diversity on display in the myriad cuisines at big celebrations, with dishes from places as contrasting as Indonesia, Serbia and Morocco.

Unlike in other Muslim-majority countries, major religious celebrations in the city tend to be co-sponsored by Shia, Sunni and Ismaili associations — who together welcome other kinds of Muslims (including North American converts to the mystical stream known as Sufism.)

While many consider Muslims to be highly traditional and isolationist, MacLean suggests roughly half of Metro’s Muslims are not overly devout — and that most are more inclined toward cultural integration than other immigrant groups from Asia.

While many Sikh, Hindu and Tibetan immigrants tend to have strong ties to their homeland, MacLean said, “There is little fetishization of the homeland” among Muslim newcomers, many of whom no longer feel closely tied to the politics or practices of their country of origin.

That makes it much more possible, the professor says, for B.C. Muslims to focus on their togetherness within the ummah, which he defines as “an ideal global community united beyond ethnicity, class and nationality — in the idealization of God’s plan.”

MULTI-HUED EVENT

Many of the more than 350 men touching their foreheads to the carpets on the floor of the Alice MacKay Room wore blue jeans and loose-fitting shirts. Some sported FC Barcelona jerseys.

The majority of men at the Friday prayers were in their 20s or 30s. When they finished worshipping, some put on baseball caps, talked intimately with each other or held hands in friendship. A few kissed on the cheek.

About a dozen women in head scarves, one with a niqab covering everything but her eyes, took part from a designated area at the rear. Almost all the gathered were brown-skinned – but of various hues, reflecting their many countries of origin.

Almost all the Muslims gathered for Friday prayers in Vancouver were brown-skinned – but of various hues, reflecting their many countries of origin.

As he helped lead the Friday prayers, Luay Kawasme told the congregation to just “ignore” declarations of anti-Americanism coming “from extremists” in Muslim-majority lands about an anti-Muhammad film made in the U.S.

Afterwards, Kawasme, 40, a computer programmer who is married and has children, said he’s noticed virtually no tension among Metro Vancouver Muslims about the incendiary film mocking the Prophet.

“I think Vancouver is definitely different” from strife-torn Muslim-majority countries such as Syria, Iran, Iraq and elsewhere, said Kawasme.

He readily acknowledged huge cultural, political and language differences exist between Muslim immigrants when they first arrive in Canada from different countries — say from Jordan, Saudi Arabia or Pakistan.

When asked about MacLean’s suggestion Metro Vancouver Muslims could be a model of inter-ethnic Islamic harmony, Kawasme responded: “I fully agree with that. It’s better to look for what’s common than to focus on the differences. That way all will prosper.”

UNIQUE ‘SOUP’ IN METRO

Growing up in Metro Vancouver in the 1970s, Pakistan-born Itrath Syed remembers the city had one small mosque, at 655 West 8th Ave.

Since the early 1970s, the census shows more than 110,000 additional Muslims have streamed into the city. Syed said many fled countries affected by civil conflicts or international invasions.

For the most part, Syed said, everyone tries to get along. For instance, Syed, a PhD student in communications at SFU, is a Sunni. But she often prays at Shia mosques.

Syed is fully aware of the long-held differences — for example, Sunnis’ generally believe their leaders should be elected, while Shias think Muhammad’s descendants should prevail as authorities.

In Metro Vancouver, Itrath Syed says almost every kind of Muslim is invited to the large pan-Muslim events.

That doesn’t mean that conflict doesn’t sometimes rear its head between Muslims from different nations.

“Most Muslims have brought their old country ways to Canada. They start out thinking the way they’ve done things is the way it’s always done.

“But then they come here and form a big soup, which creates a new North American Muslim experience. There’s not an awful lot of points of conflict.”

Although most of the city’s Muslims don’t want to discuss Ahmadiyya Muslims publicly, MacLean, the SFU professor, has written that one of the few barriers that remains among Metro Muslims is over the Ahmadiyya, who have been labelled “non-Muslims” in Pakistan.

The city’s roughly 1,500 Ahmadiyya tend to have an authoritarian structure, and are focused on winning converts, MacLean writes. They are not usually welcomed to the city’s “umbrella” Muslim events.

While Muslims appreciate MacLean’s “objective” approach to their community, Syed says it’s considered “rude” for Muslims themselves to talk explicitly about such splits within the ummah.

“The ideal of the Muslim community as one body is held dear to all believers. But we’re all human,” Syed acknowledges.

As with Syed, Ismaili Muslim Ali Lakhani believes there are not many “fights in Vancouver of radical-versus-moderate Muslims.”

That is largely because Metro Muslims are not having “their religion exploited in the name of politics,” says Lakhani, a Vancouver lawyer who also publishes a journal called Sacred Web.

Lakhani and Syed maintained that most so-called “religious” conflicts, such as those in Syria and Kashmir, are really political battles — with competing groups manipulating religious loyalties to seize control of land, wealth or the reins of government.

Unlike in some parts of the world, Ali Lakhani says, Ismailis like him are generally accepted among Metro Vancouver Muslims.

For such reasons, Ismaili Muslims, many of whom have Indian roots, are often shunned by Muslims in other parts of the world. But Lakhani says Ismailis are generally accepted in Metro Vancouver, including at large pan-Muslim celebrations.

The city’s roughly 15,000 Ismailis do not invite other Muslims to their private religious services. But, following the example of their leader, the Aga Khan, Lakhani cited many quotes from the Prophet about the importance of spiritual “pluralism” — of accepting that different people can find different paths to the divine.

It’s happened at the city’s campuses. In the past five years, efforts to create over-arching Muslim students’ associations at SFU and the University of B.C. have failed.

Laya Behbahani, a devout Shia Muslim born in Iran who is a masters student in criminology at SFU, remembers being told several years ago by Sunni students that she was not “a real Muslim.”

Behbahani, 28, said some aggressive students among the 200 in what was then called The SFU Muslim Students Association had been inflamed by their hard-line Sunni leaders.

“They basically kicked us (the Shias) out,” she said. “It’s unfortunate. We did have to separate.”

Now there are autonomous Sunni and Shia Muslim student groups at both UBC and SFU. Even though she’s disappointed there is “sometimes a lot of tension between Muslims on an individual level” in Metro Vancouver, Behbahani is pleased that — at a “macro level” — local Muslims generally act hospitably to each other.

Despite spending her childhood in Iran and Dubai, for instance. Behbahani attends Az-Zahra mosque on No. 5 Road in Richmond. It is spiritual home mostly to Shia people of Khoja background, which means they are Indians or Pakistanis who hail from East Africa.

Sometimes discord breaks out. At SFU, Laya Behbahani remembers being told by some hardline Sunni students that she was not “a real Muslim.”

Az-Zahra mosque goes out of its way to reach out to the wider Muslim and non-Muslim community, with a Montessori school open to all Muslims, active participation in the Terry Fox Run and by contributing to the Richmond Food Bank during Ramadan.

However, Behbahani may be most enthusiastic about the scholarly community growing up around Islam in Metro Vancouver, particularly through SFU’s dynamic Centre for the Study of Muslim Societies and Cultures, which frequently holds events for all Muslims.

That’s where Behbahani feels she is able to fully express her “respect and enjoyment” of those from other Islamic traditions. She readily admits she’s probably one of the more open-minded of Metro Muslims.

“I really like the diversity. Some Muslims here would say their way is right — and all others are wrong. Others would say ‘God is in your heart,’ which is trendy. But the majority, like me, are probably in the middle. They would say, ‘Ours is the right way, but I’m open to other ways.'”

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SERIES: THREE BIG SHIFTS IN METRO VANCOUVER SPIRITUALITY:

The largest religions in Metro Vancouver are undergoing major transitions because of gender and ethnicity.

Christianity, Buddhism and Islam are being transformed. They are changing because of the rise of women in society and as a result of Canada’s high immigration rates. Over the next few weeks, Vancouver Sun religion writer Douglas Todd will explore just how dramatically these religions have evolved since the 1970s in Canada and beyond. Metro Vancouver, with its liberal attitudes and incredible ethnic diversity, is turning out to be at the heart of the new experiments in three religions; creating possible lessons for the rest of the world. The series starts today.

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